This is the situation.
We’re meeting on Tuesday the 13th of January 2015 in Room 17 of The Lemon Tree Guest House in Russell Square, Brighton, BN1 2EE.
I’m Martin Towers and I’m the Chairman of this Meeting because this is my room. Also present are: Wendy Duvall from Room 9 (downstairs) and her baby, Nameless Tiffany; and Aaron Sabbattica from Room 21 (upstairs); and Triple A from various shop doorways in North Street.
Apologies for absence from Wendy’s brother Alfie [get well soon].
ITEM #1
We’ve all received letters from our new landlord, the John Perrot Trust Housing Association. Wendy’s letter was addressed to her real name, Catherine Dovedale; Aaron’s was addressed to someone called Stephen Morris; and Triple A didn’t get a letter because he doesn’t live here.
We’re informed that the Lemon Tree is being taken over by a housing association (the JP Trust). We’ll all be allowed to continue living here (except Triple A, who doesn’t live here). We must read and sign a ‘tenancy agreement’. Miss Sharon Watney (who’s mine and also Wendy’s community support worker) said she’ll visit tomorrow to answer all our questions. Aaron wants to know if people with drug convictions will be evicted because that’s what it says in the agreement paragraph 14. And Aaron says his eviction would be unfair because he doesn’t have a conviction and people with convictions should be allowed to be rehabilitated.
The JP Trust letter also includes a photocopy of a page from Sky News (from the 27th of December 2014, news.sky.com/story/1397661 – Drug Dealers ‘Cuckooing’ Vulnerable People). It reports drug dealers target vulnerable people with mental health problems and take over their victim’s homes to set up shop. This is called “cuckooing” because it’s like the bird that invades a victim’s nest and then forces her to cooperate.
Triple A’s asked me to write in these minutes that he’s not a drug dealer and that he and Wendy are getting married.
ITEM #2
Wendy’s shown us a letter from social services that says her baby, Nameless Tiffany might be taken into care because “she is at risk”.
Wendy doesn’t want to get married but says she’d like her baby to have a godfather who’d take care of Nameless Tiffany if she (Wendy) died. So I said I’d be happy to do this. But Aaron says Wendy should consider him for the part. And Triple A says it should be his job because he’s Wendy’s fiancé.
Wendy says she’ll choose just one person to be Godfather. She says her choice will be like Quests of the Gallant Knights where we have to prove which one of us is the best candidate. She’ll also ask her community support worker to be the fourth person on this Quest.
Aaron says if all four of us want to play the part of Nameless Tiffany’s Godfather then we should call ourselves The Godfather Part Four.
So we’ve all agreed that we’ll go on whatever quest Wendy decides; and we’ll write to the film director Francis Ford Coppola (who’s already directed The Godfathers Part One, Two and Three) and ask him if he’d like to make a film about what we’re doing.
ITEM #3
Everyone’s very excited about this idea.
We’re going to set up a business and make films. We could also make television programmes and computer games and get musicians to record music for our films and do live gigs.
We’ve written a list of 53 ideas but Martin and Wendy agree that we can’t make everything at the same time.
We agree that no one’s allowed to vote for more than one idea.
These are the ideas that we’ve voted for and shall make:
(1) A film called The Godfather Part Four
(2) Aaron’s Witch Star Project
(3) A quiz show about shopping channels.
ITEM #4
(a) We can’t agree what to call our film company/TV business. Martin says I think The Godfathers makes us sound like gangsters. Wendy says we should ask Alfie because he’s always got lots of ideas, and Triple A says he’ll ask Alfie about this when he visits him tomorrow.
(b) Triple A wants us to know that all his friends call him Trip.
ITEM #5
Triple A will buy us a VHS camcorder so that we can make our first film tomorrow. The cost will be five 10mg Diazepam blues, paid today in advance. The camcorder will use VHS tape, which we can watch on my TV/video-deck combi. Triple A says the advantage of buying a VHS camera is no-one’s going to steal it because no-one (not even the pawn shops) are buying them.
ITEM #6
Because my analogue television doesn’t have Freeview, we’re now upstairs in Aaron’s room watching Wendy’s cousin on the WTO Shopping Channel – although we’re not interested in today’s Last Chance To Buy summer swimwear shopathon.
We’ve already watched Animals do the Funniest Things on Sky Déjà Vu. It was a repeat. Then we watched some of How Things are Made on Discovery Gold, but Wendy said this was boring – but she was outvoted 3-1. But then she said she’d go back to her room, so we agreed to watch Aaron’s Dom Hemmingway video. Then we watched Pointless (our favourite TV quiz show) on BBC One.
Then we watched You Make It, We Show It! on LTV.
Triple A says he knows someone who’s sent Bill Smith (the boss of LTV) a film about Life in a Bag on North Street made entirely on an iPhone. However, we have all agreed, we can’t afford to buy an iPhone.
ITEM #7
Wendy’s decided our first Godfather Quest will be to rescue her brother Alfie from Merrydown Park Hospital (where he’s detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act). Triple A says he’ll achieve this tomorrow. And good luck with that.
SIGNED: Martin Towers
_________________
Minutes of a Meeting of The Witch Star Project: on Saturday the 14th of March 2015; in Room 17 of Lemon Tree House in Russell Square, Brighton.
Attended by: Project Secretary Martin Towers; Project Director Aaron Sabbattica; Wendy Duvall; and Nameless Tiffany.
Apologies for absence received from: Alfie Dovedale: Sharon Watney: Asif Iqbal: and Otto Laing.
ITEM #9
Item #8 and all the other Minutes from our previous Meetings (apart from those I kept from our first Meeting in January 2015) have been ‘lost’. Aaron says they’re probably somewhere in his room but he can’t find them.
I’ve had an idea! If we think these Minutes are worthless then none of us will care who sees them. Subsequently these Minutes shall be posted on the noticeboard in the lobby downstairs on Sunday morning.
In summary: Since January, this Project has achieved very little.
• Alfie’s still a prisoner at Merrydown Park
• Our script for The Godfather Part Four is unfinished
• Aaron won’t tell us what’s happening with Witch Star because (apparently) “it’s bad luck to talk about an idea before it’s ready”
• We can’t record our quiz show at The Art Kane Bar because the batteries for the camera we bought from Triple A exploded
• Alfie says our ideas for a computer game are rubbish
And Alfie’s band are demanding payments in advance before they’ll record any more music for our movie soundtrack. This is (apparently) because that bunch of losers are no longer being offered gigs – not even in Hove.
ITEM #10
Wendy says we should put a ‘Thank You’ to Sharon in these Minutes for writing letters to Social Services saying Nameless Tiffany is being well looked after by Wendy and doesn’t need to be taken into care. Wendy says she’s invited Sharon to come along to our meetings but Sharon doesn’t work weekends.
ITEM #11
Although our thanks were noted in Item #10, Wendy says it doesn’t look like a proper “Thank You”. So, to be clear, Wendy wants me to write this properly: THANK YOU SHARON.
ITEM #12
Aaron wants it noted that the police might have confiscated the Minutes mentioned in Item #9. Apparently they took away several documents from his room. Apparently they’re looking for a missing person called Stephen Morris – as many of us will know; and most of us are going to be asked if we’ve ever known a Stephen Morris. And now Aaron wants it minuted: He believes Stephen Morris was consumed by dragon fire then drawn into someone’s lungs as a cloud of smoke before blending with that person’s soul.
ITEM #13
We had all agreed (it was noted in the lost Minutes) that none of us know much about business – which is why, so far, we haven’t achieved much beyond collecting 777 discarded lotto scratch cards.
Aaron had agreed to politely decline Triple A’s kind offer to be our business manager.
Then we had compiled a list of all the business people we know and had agreed to ask them for advice:
(i) Asif Iqbal is the owner of Iqbal’s Convenience Store on Western Road. Iqbal lets us buy cheap bread and milk from him on Monday afternoons.
Iqbal told us we’ll never make any money from films because we don’t come from Hollywood. Apparently we come from Loserville. He told us only television makes money in this country, because television money comes from advertising.
Iqbal’s offering £100 if we can make an advert for his shop that will be shown on local TV. This advert would have to tell students his shop was ready to deliver cheap booze by taxi 24/7 to any party anywhere in Brighton & Hove.
So Triple A used his iPhone to make an advert for Iqbal’s shop – and Alfie was adding some captions from his laptop. But local TV said they wouldn’t be broadcasting our ad without the say-so of a Miss Heather Boxtop (one of their Sales & Marketing brokers). It seems she wants us to buy one of her tailor-made packages for “scheduling a campaign whilst building brand awareness”. But she wouldn’t say how much one of those packages would cost. She told us we’d first have to meet. But then, the following day, when Heather came to the Lemon Tree, all she’d say was, “I’m sorry. There must have been some mistake.” Then she left. And now she won’t take our calls when we call her office.
(ii) Mr Al-Khwarizmi owns AK News & Tobacco on Western Road.
Mr Al -unlike Iqbal- sells lotto scratch cards. He also sells Gitanes French cigarettes (and, although Wendy doesn’t smoke, she does like to have a packet of Gitanes handy for when she has guests). Wendy says Mr Al is going to lend her a famous book that contains all the wisdom of Persia’s ancient merchants.
(iii) Otto Laing is the owner, manager and head chef of Kosher Kebabs in Western Road.
Otto is the nephew of the Lemon Tree’s former owners – which is why we got a 90% discount on his speciality vegan hot dogs. Otto says he’d be happy to read and give an opinion on our business plan.
We, however, do not have a business plan. Aaron says we don’t need a business plan. And Wendy and Nameless Tiffany are abstaining on this issue.
I’ve told Otto about some of our ideas. And he’s told me that, although he likes them, we should bear in mind that no great ideas will ever be as useful as the simplest of solutions to a difficult problem. And our problem is that we’re living in poverty with heads full of fantasies.
Seeing the look of disappointment on my face – Otto said we should also bear in mind that while an answer to our problems might not be in our fantasies, one might realistically come from our fantasies. He then quoted one of his favourite observations regarding the imagination. This quote comes from the opening line in Mentor Books’ (New York, 1961) Introduction to Joseph Gaer’s The Wandering Jew.
“Men’s minds are ruled as much by fable as by fact, for the unknown is infinitely greater than the known and the imagination is a readier guide than the intellect.”
– Why’s TV so pink & purple, these days? –
(iv) Although the former owners of the Lemon Tree (Mr & Mrs Rabinovich) are now retired, Mr Rabinovich said he would give our ideas some thought.
Mrs Rabinovich has given us one of Mr Rabinovich’s old red leather-bound accountancy books from the 1970s. She said only its first fifty pages had been used. She said we were more than welcome to use its remaining three hundred and fifteen pages to record our own accounts, while those first fifty pages might teach us how not to run a haberdashery.
(v) The Reverend Stephen Smith (vicar of St Francis) runs a food bank for the poor of this parish. According to Triple A, that makes the vicar a businessman.
Triple A’s been gathering tinned meat from the St Francis food bank to sell as dog food to the homeless in North Street. If the vicar’s willing to help us find someone who can write a business plan then we’ll advise him not to supply Triple A with any more dog food.
(vi) We listed but haven’t yet sought advice from these other six:
• John, the manager of The Art Kane Bar in Eastern Road
• Chris from Classic Axes in Trafalgar Street – which is where Alfie buys and sells his guitars
• Barry, a friend of Alfie’s and the owner of The Day-Glo-Pink Burger Van currently parked in Circus Street
• Mo Kappa from The North Laine’s 777th Junk Emporium – with whom we are currently negotiating the purchase of one large box of assorted re-recordable VHS tapes
• Julie (the cleaner on Mondays at the Lemon Tree) who tells us she’s now “self employed”
• And Julie’s friend Elaine, who has the The Flowerings of Cactus stall in London Road’s Open Market.
ITEM #14
We agree that the money to make our first film will have to come from advertising. And the money to make our adverts will have to come from –
(a) people who’ll pay us to make adverts for their businesses
and/or
(b) half the money we might win from tonight’s National Lottery.
Aaron says he’s discovered Daytime TV charges cornflakes advertisers $2000 per minute to broadcast their ads in New York City and, in the UK, it costs £500 for each thirty second broadcast in areas where less than 50,000 are watching after 11pm. Iqbal, however, does not believe our advert is worth another £500 of his money.
Aaron says he’s written to the astrologer Val Aviv – from whom he recently purchased a horoscope. She presents The Basket Case, which is an arts & crafts show on LTV. Aaron is asking her to ask LTV boss Bill Smith if we can advertise on his channel without having to buy packages to schedule a campaign or build brand awareness.
ITEM #15
Art is what we frame! Our ticket for tonight’s National Lottery draw has been placed in a frame and hung above the gas fire in Wendy’s room. Our title for that particular work of art is ‘The Million Pound Banknote’.
And Wendy’s presenting the following pieces of research she’s been cutting out of the magazines in Dr Shah’s waiting room.
//// People are inspired and enriched when one both changes and adds value to what’s otherwise perceived as trash //// On BBC Television’s Late Review on February 3rd, 2000 – referring to the mass adoption by UK producers of product placement in mainstream entertainment – Germaine Greer declared, “Marketing is our greatest art form” //// Apart from drugs, art is the biggest unregulated commodity market in the world and worth an annual $30billion //// A beautiful painting by Klimt was recently bought by the Lauder Fashion Foundation for $135million //// A really rubbish Picasso [according to Alfie] was bought in 1981 for $5million; was resold in 1989 for $47million; and today might be worth over $200million ////
ITEM #16
Wendy’s volunteered to find Francis Ford Coppola’s Hollywood email address.
ITEM #17
Wendy’s showing us two pictures she bought yesterday in London Road’s Open Market for £10 each. Wendy says we can sell one of these to finance our film.
She thinks Katie Sollohub’s print, Everything and The Kitchen Sink, 2010 [SEE ABOVE] is very pretty, and Tracey Emin’s Three Atomic Bombs, 1928 [SEE BELOW] must be worth a fortune.
ITEM #18
Aaron says he’s not sure about the Tracey Emin. He’s pretty sure it was a greetings card Wendy bought in Tesco’s on Mother’s Day.
Wendy says she’s not sure about Aaron’s Witch Star Project. She says, “It’s a banana.”
ITEM #19
We haven’t been given another date for our novelty quiz night at the Art Kane Bar.
We need to decide on a name for our quiz. Celebrity Chainsaw Massacre is currently in receipt of two votes. The Unexpected Return of the Spanish Inquisition has two votes.
ITEM #20
Julie (the Lemon Tree’s cleaner on Mondays) wants us to know she was really annoyed to find someone had used glue to paste a Witch Star Project HQ sign in the window next to the front door, downstairs.
Aaron wants us to bear in mind that when Saatchi & Saatchi were the most successful advertising agency in the world, their motto ‘Nothing is Impossible’ was carved into the doorstep of their London headquarters. And he (Aaron) thinks Julie should know he intends to paint our motto ‘Gloria sic et transit van’ across the pavement in Russell Square right outside the Lemon Tree.
ITEM #21
Aaron says everything we might need to know about his project will appear on the internet from midnight tonight (under a Terms & Conditions section of www.777witchstar.com)
SIGNED: Martin Towers
_________________
Minutes of a Meeting of The Witch Star Project: on Solstice Sunday the 21st of June 2015; in Room 17 of Lemon Tree House, Russell Square, Brighton.
Attended by: Martin Towers; Aaron Sabbattica; Wendy Duvall; and Nameless Tiffany.
Apologies for absence from: Alfie Dovedale.
ITEM #22
We haven’t been having meetings because people can’t find time in their busy lives. So we’ve agreed to hold just four formal meetings per year. These meetings will be in March, June, September and December on an equinox or solstice.
ITEM #23
Aaron and Triple A have our permission to sell limited edition copies of these minutes (including previous and future minutes). All project members will receive an equal share of the profits. We’re informed that copies of previous minutes that were posted and then went missing from the downstairs lobby noticeboard have been sold but, on this occasion – after the deduction of Aaron and Triple A’s expenses – no profits were made.
ITEM #24
We agree to Wendy’s request for a picture of and/or by her and Alfie’s favourite artist Modigliani to appear on the cover of today’s minutes. Wendy says Modigliani and his wife were the archetypal doomed lovers and artists living in poverty in a Parisian attic.
Wendy wants their story printed from Wikipedia and attached to these minutes.
ITEM #25
We voted [with one against and three in favour] that we should write a letter to the JPT Housing Association and to Southern Counties NHS Trust to complain about Brighton Council’s eviction of the homeless people from shop doorways in North Street. We shall ask that these people are given homes by the Trust or hospital beds in Merrydown Park.
ITEM #26
We shall write to our support worker, Sharon to say that we completely understand why she can’t attend our meetings and that we still want her to be our support worker. Sharon has told us that she is supposed to be able to offer each of us two one hour visits per week, but she’s currently covering for a colleague (who’s longterm off sick with stress). So she can only really manage one visit per week. And – Sharon has explained – that one hour is meant to include ten minutes travelling to each visit and five minutes reading and preparing notes (although it’s actually more like fifteen minutes travel, ten minutes of paperwork and she’s always running at least five minutes late from her previous appointment, which means she can only really offer us half an hour each per week).
ITEM #27
Matters arising; items carried forward; and plans of action:
(a) The manager of the Art Kane Bar said he enjoyed our Celebrity Chainsaw Massacre quiz night. Although only two other people in the bar participated, we shall organise another quiz and invite local television’s shopping channel to sponsor our event.
We shall invite all Brighton & Hove pub quiz Question Masters to join our Unexpected Return of the Spanish Inquisition event. This could be filmed for our local TV advert (which would include Witch Star’s secret message to Nostradamus).
Our horoscope from LTV’s Val Aviv suggests September/October would be most auspicious. Martin will investigate whether funding for an event could be raised through ‘crowd sourcing’ (as suggested by our business advisor, Otto the Kebab).
(b) Wendy still hasn’t heard from Francis Ford Coppola. She will go to Hove library next week and send another email. She’s also waiting for a valuation regarding the pictures she bought (see Item #17).
(c) Martin can now only work part time as our Project Secretary. I’ve been ordered by my Welfare & Benefits Officer to attend industrial therapy – a training scheme, to learn how to be an office cleaner – at the St Francis Community Centre for three days per week.
(d) Alfie’s script, For Your Eyes Only, has been sold for an undisclosed quantity of Plumpton Estate wine to a local film producer/cameraman – Timothy Sackville-West – who assures us this film will be made next year. Alfie says it’s entirely possible we could insert one of our messages to Nostradamus into this film, which could then be broadcast on local TV.
(e) Alfie’s told Aaron he’s met someone who’s got an allotment where they’re going to grow barley and junipers for Brighton Gin. Apparently Alfie says we can use those empty wine bottles to bottle his gin, which could then be sold to finance our film.
(f) We shall redouble our efforts to have Alfie released from Merrydown Park.
(g) Our next meeting shall be here, in Room 17 of the Lemon Tree, at 7pm on Wednesday the 23rd of September 2015, which will be the Autumn Equinox.
SIGNED: Martin Towers
_________________
2015 Minute Credits for artwork near item #
#1 The pointless green cover is based on an illustration by Dana Bartram ♦♦ #1 Looking for the Natural Carrot is a full colour portrait of her budgies by Miss T. Barty-Parti ♦♦ #6 Pointless is a show on BBC TV ♦♦ #6 You Make It, We Show It is a show on Latest TV ♦♦ #9 All About Alfie is an illustration by Christian S. ♦♦ #12 Mom & Dad is a line drawing by Tim Sewell ♦♦ #13 Pink & Purple is everywhere on modern TV ♦♦ #17 Everything and The Kitchen Sink is by Katie Sollohub – www.katiesollohub.co.uk ♦♦ #17 Three Atomic Bombs by Tracey Emin 1928 is a Tesco greetings card by an unidentified artist ♦♦ #22 Those Faces are by – and one is of – Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920) ♦♦ #27 Sunlight Sanity Soap is © VHC 2016.
The Witch Star Project 